Rising seas? Hundreds of Pacific Islands are growing, not shrinking

This should end all the Pacific Island climate claims right here. A new study of over 700 islands for decades shows that even though seas are rising faster than any time in the last million years, somehow no islands with people on are shrinking. This means there are no climate change refugees from any vanishing island. Plus it’s more proof that highly adjusted satellite data is recording sea levels on some other planet.

Over the past decades, atoll islands exhibited no widespread sign of physical destabilization in the face of sea-level rise. A reanalysis of available data, which cover 30 Pacific and Indian Ocean atolls including 709 islands, reveals that no atoll lost land area and that 88.6% of islands were either stable or increased in area, while only 11.4% contracted.

Look how closely these researchers are tracking the shores. Below on Tuamoto, French Polynesia, scientists can tell you that islets 12 and 14 (see pic) have disappeared since 1962. So we can track roving blobs of sand about 20 to 30 meters across.

Sea level rise, climate change, pacific islands.

….

 

No habitable island, none, got smaller:

The researchers reckon that 10 hectares is about the smallest island you’d want to plonk a resort on, that’s about that is about ten Rugby fields. Conveniently for us, no island bigger than 10 hectares shrank despite the world adding two thousand coal fired plants and a billion cars.

It is noteworthy that no island larger than 10 ha decreased in size, making this value a relevant threshold to define atoll island areal stability. We therefore propose to use this threshold, first, to define the minimum island size required for human occupancy or exploitation, and second, to assess atoll and atoll countries and territories’ vulnerability to climate change. Using this threshold for future island development (e.g., resort island) would considerably limit the risk for new developments to be negatively affected by island areal and positional instability, on condition of also avoiding any human intervention that may alter island sediment budget (e.g., sediment extraction) and natural dynamics (e.g., obstruction of sediment transport and deposition by constructions)

See the graph. All the larger islands are staying the same size or growing.

Global, sea level, islands, size, change.

Decadal change in island land area for 709 Pacific and Indian Ocean islands. Click to enlarge.

Coming next, panic that rising oceans are shrinking because islands are expanding. And if you can follow that, there is a job waiting for you at the UNEP.

REFERENCE

Duvat, V. K. E. (2018). A global assessment of atoll island planform changes over the past decades. Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change, e557. doi:10.1002/wcc.557

9.8 out of 10 based on 99 ratings

172 comments to Rising seas? Hundreds of Pacific Islands are growing, not shrinking

  • #
    Mal

    I am looking forward to hearing about this report on the ABC.
    They will probably have Tim flannerry to explain it.
    May be a very long wait.

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    • #
      Bill In Oz

      I am waiting for Robin Williams to announce it on the Science show on ABC Radio National. After all that’s what the Science Show exists for.

      But like you I suspect I will wait an awful long time.

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    • #
      Sceptical Sam

      Forget Tim Flannery, he’s nothing more than an NPC.

      Darwin knew and wrote about this over 180 years ago while leaving the Cocos Keeling Group in the Indian Ocean.

      What a pity Tim Flannery and no other alarmist reads science history. Or apparently collects stamps.

      https://www.maxstern.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/781.jpg

      https://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/d/darwin/charles/beagle/chapter20.html

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      • #
        Sceptical Sam

        I just reread this and now need to apologize for the appalling prose.

        What I was seeking to say was:

        “What a pity neither Tim Flannery nor the other alarmists read science history. Or, apparently, collect stamps.”

        And while I’m at it, don’t forget the Parrot Fish. A mighty enemy of the chicken littles. But don’t believe evreything you read on Wikipedia:

        Each fish is capable of defecating 1 billion tons of sand a year.

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baa_Atoll

        It must have been written by BoM.

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    • #

      Speaking of the spruiker, what happened to Perth? It was supposed to be the first abandoned city in the world due to climate change. Where are all the WA climate change refugees?

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      • #
        TedM

        Yes, supposed to be abandoned because of perma-drought. Wonder if Timmy has looked at rainfall figures for Perth for the last few years. There again, if you believe that models are reality even when reality is the inverse of the models………..????????????

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        • #
          TedM

          ……….you are probably an alarmist.

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        • #
          robert rosicka

          In reply to TedM , the “weekly times” has lashed out at BOM for consistently inaccurate long range forecasts ,they say of the last 17 only 2 were anywhere near reality .
          Models are great for showing off clothes but useless for predicting anything to do with climate or weather .

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      • #
        Robber

        I nominate Adelaide to be the first abandoned city due high electricity prices and no jobs other than building useless obsolete submarines.

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      • #
        Graeme#4

        Us sandgropers are doing very nicely thanks. Our gardens and lawns are flourishing due to the continued cooler and wetter weather. Main problem is having to mow the lawns more – darn stuff is growing too fast.

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    • #
      Ted O'Brien.

      Get him to explain this:

      https://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/sltrends/sltrends_global_station.shtml?stnid=680-140

      Also he should explain why NOAA terminated this chart at about 2010. Could it be because it was giving the lie to their narrative? I have seen a like chart which has added, yes, an uptick! Very suspect!

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  • #
    Graeme No.3

    Ah! But if you stand on your right leg, place your left toe behind your right ear, bend down and look backwards, you will be able to see the rising sea levels.
    But don’t panic! When Global Cooling© sets in, sea levels will fall and you will be able to run around in decreasing circles claiming that it is due to rising carbon levels (whatever they are).

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  • #
    Lionell Griffith

    The next big panic: “The sky has fallen! The oceans are being filled with sand. We must stop the industrial revolution and destroy modern civilization to save the oceans and the earth. Soon, your children won’t know what water is. Save the world, don’t drink water.” Hmmm…would beer and wine be OK to drink?

    Yes, this is way over the top. Even more over the top than the current “climate change” panic. That won’t stop some people (corrupt politicians – is there any other kind?) from raising taxes and prohibiting the use of energy so you can stay alive.

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  • #
    Peter C

    Butting in Early but I need some help!

    I got off the train. The Green candidate was there. I have met him before so I went to say hello. He is a lawyer and quite decent. We agree on a lot, except the Green House Theory! He had a supporter who turned out to be a scientist, so I talked to him.

    He ( the scientist) put to me that Sweden has had unprecedented Forest Fires over the past two years (because of Global Warming). That put me off track. Is that Right? Sweden has a lot of Forrest.
    I would be quite concerned if Forrest fires in Sweden really are unprecedented!

    I have Googled a few papers about historical fires in Swedish Forests but I can’t down load them.

    Can anyone help?

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    • #
      AndrewWA

      If it’s Global Warming then it should be impacting everywhere not just in Sweden.

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      • #
        Graeme No.3

        Good point. Why Sweden? What about Norway, Finland and Russia, all of whom have lots of forests. Less in the case of Finland as it turns then into wood pellets to sell to the EU.

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        • #
          ivan

          Why Sweden? Non of my Swedish friends that were down here this summer mentioned anything about unprecedented Forest Fires this year or last year. They did complain about the unprecedented numbers of ‘global savages’, their words, that are trying to take over the country though.

          I think the comment of the ‘scientist’, was he a real scientist or a social non scientist, was carefully thought out to cause upset Sweden being a long way away and somewhat difficult to get real world information about in a language that would cause problems for non Swedish speakers.

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      • #
        robert rosicka

        Australia supposedly has more snow cover than Sweden , which might suggest a lot of forest but never heard of that many fires it might be fake news .

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    • #
      Jeff

      There was this study saying wildfires are no worse

      “Yet many consider wildfire as an accelerating problem, with widely held perceptions both in the media and scientific papers of increasing fire occurrence, severity and resulting losses. However, important exceptions aside, the quantitative evidence available does not support these perceived overall trends. Instead, global area burned appears to have overall declined over past decades, and there is increasing evidence that there is less fire in the global landscape today than centuries ago.”

      https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4874420/

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      • #
        Peter C

        I have no idea why he picked Sweden. I suppose that he read something recently about forrest fires in Sweden and related it to arctic warming.

        Thanks Jeff. Your article is an excellent rebuttal. I have printed the abstract.

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    • #
      Mark M

      How much more renewable energy must Sweden use before Sweden prevents its first forest fire?

      How low must carbon (sic) be in Sweden before Sweden prevents its first forest fire?

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    • #
      Don A

      When considered in the light of previous events like the Holocaust, most religions, fatty foods, and CAGW this helps to understand what the problem is.
      Dietrich Bonhoeffer seems to have identified the reason why CAGW advocates are so hard to talk to. The stupidity of the blind acceptance of the Gore led “Carbon Pollution” scam cannot be countered because…

      ‘Stupidity is a more dangerous enemy of the good than malice. One may protest against evil; it can be exposed and, if need be, prevented by use of force. Evil always carries within itself the germ of its own subversion in that it leaves behind in human beings at least a sense of unease. Against stupidity we are defenceless. Neither protests nor the use of force accomplish anything here; reasons fall on deaf ears; facts that contradict one’s prejudgment simply need not be believed- in such moments the stupid person even becomes critical – and when facts are irrefutable they are just pushed aside as inconsequential, as incidental. In all this the stupid person, in contrast to the malicious one, is utterly self-satisfied and, being easily irritated, becomes dangerous by going on the attack. For that reason, greater caution is called for than with a malicious one. Never again will we try to persuade the stupid person with reasons, for it is senseless and dangerous.
      ‘If we want to know how to get the better of stupidity, we must seek to understand its nature. This much is certain, that it is in essence not an intellectual defect but a human one. There are human beings who are of remarkably agile intellect yet stupid, and others who are intellectually quite dull yet anything but stupid. We discover this to our surprise in particular situations. The impression one gains is not so much that stupidity is a congenital defect, but that, under certain circumstances, people are made stupid or that they allow this to happen to them. We note further that people who have isolated themselves from others or who lives in solitude manifest this defect less frequently than individuals or groups of people inclined or condemned to sociability. And so it would seem that stupidity is perhaps less a psychological than a sociological problem. It is a particular form of the impact of historical circumstances on human beings, a psychological concomitant of certain external conditions. Upon closer observation, it becomes apparent that every strong upsurge of power in the public sphere, be it of a political or of a religious nature, infects a large part of humankind with stupidity. It would even seem that this is virtually a sociological-psychological law. The power of the one needs the stupidity of the other. The process at work here is not that particular human capacities, for instance, the intellect, suddenly atrophy or fail. Instead, it seems that under the overwhelming impact of rising power, humans are deprived of their inner independence, and, more or less consciously, give up establishing an autonomous position toward the emerging circumstances. The fact that the stupid person is often stubborn must not blind us to the fact that he is not independent. In conversation with him, one virtually feels that one is dealing not at all with a person, but with slogans, catchwords and the like that have taken possession of him. He is under a spell, blinded, misused, and abused in his very being. Having thus become a mindless tool, the stupid person will also be capable of any evil and at the same time incapable of seeing that it is evil. This is where the danger of diabolical misuse lurks, for it is this that can once and for all destroy human beings.
      ‘Yet at this very point it becomes quite clear that only an act of liberation, not instruction, can overcome stupidity. Here we must come to terms with the fact that in most cases a genuine internal liberation becomes possible only when external liberation has preceded it. Until then we must abandon all attempts to convince the stupid person. This state of affairs explains why in such circumstances our attempts to know what ‘the people’ really think are in vain and why, under these circumstances, this question is so irrelevant for the person who is thinking and acting responsibly. The word of the Bible that the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom declares that the internal liberation of human beings to live the responsible life before God is the only genuine way to overcome stupidity.
      ‘But these thoughts about stupidity also offer consolation in that they utterly forbid us to consider the majority of people to be stupid in every circumstance. It really will depend on whether those in power expect more from people’s stupidity than from their inner independence and wisdom.’
      -Dietrich Bonhoeffer, from ‘After Ten Years’ in Letters and Papers from Prison (Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works/English, vol. 8) Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2010.

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      • #

        Interesting post Don, thanks. Not much hope in the concluding sentence, there is no doubt stupidity is more bankable as votes for politicians than independence. And it is so hard to counter, the stupid will not listen.

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      • #
        Annie

        Thank you for that Don A. It’s years since I read any of Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s work. It is good to have a reminder and see it from my present age.

        40

      • #
        PADRE

        Thank you, Don, for this. It seems to me to sum up ‘Groupthink’ perfectly. It also reminds me of the stupidity of so many intelligent and well-educated members of the Church of England synod who voted to divest from coal investments. There are some stark examples in history in general and church history in particular, where individual thinkers have been pilloried or even executed for exposing stupid gro’Groupthink’

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      • #
        Ian Hilliar

        Now we know from where Kevin Rudd got his writing style and content.

        20

      • #
        Peter C

        Discern the fraud beneath the specious lure,
        Prevent the danger, or prescribe the cure.
        The clear harangue, and cold as it is clear,
        Falls soporific on the listless ear;

        https://www.virtualsalt.com/lit/error.htm

        10

    • #
      Kinky Keith

      Interesting point, Peter but from what we know about the all too frequent bushfires in Australia, there is a reason and Sweden most likely is the same.

      Australian governments have “saved” on bush management at all levels by failing to carry out the time tested measures required to make the inevitable fire less damaging.

      Here on the coast of Newcastle we have had unprecedented fires in recent years that have been a result of bad management, which is synonymous with Cost Cutting.

      Small winter, low intensity burns can do wonders when faced with the coming summer dryout.

      But it costs, and it’s so easy to blame Global Warming.

      KK

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      • #
        Robber

        Interestingly, in Victoria after the many destructive bush fires over many years that devastated exposed towns, there is now an increase in defensive burning before each summer as the greens were silenced. Bu that doesn’t apply to more remote state forests including the high country, so expect to see more “it’s worse than we thought” stories.

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        • #
          Greebo

          as the greens were silenced

          Really? In Yarra Ranges one is now compelled to ‘register’ one’s burn, and burning is banned in the “residential overlay”, never minding the fact that in 1997 houses were destroyed by ember attack in those same “residential overlays”. Upwey and Belgrave, for example, are still quite heavily treed, but residents are forced to rely on fortnightly kerbside bin collections to clear windfalls, or must have trailers to take their green waste to collection centres. Of course, Yarra Ranges is administered out of suburban Lillydale.

          40

    • #
      Kinky Keith

      Interesting that the conversation was moved from the disputed greenhouse effect to forest fires, themselves mostly a bye product of green mismanagement.

      CO2 does cause atmospheric overheating.

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    • #
      Mark D.

      When you here/read the word “unprecedented” you should remain calm because what follows that word is certainly bull crap.

      Many forest fires are caused by humans but NOT because of anthropogenic co2. Arson, accident and “modern” forest management YES.

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      • #
        Sceptical Sam

        Oops. moderated (again).

        What I was saying was:

        “Pea and thimble Peter. He got you.

        You let him shift your gaze from the thimble with the pea to the thimble with the con. (But I used the “f” word)

        They’re very tricky and slippery these Greenies.”

        There. Fixed it.

        🙂

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    • #
      Sceptical Sam

      Pea and thimble Peter. He got you.

      You let him shift your gaze from the thimble with the pea to the thimble with the fraud.

      They’re very tricky and slippery these Greenies.

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    • #
      sophocles

      To Peter C @ # 4:

      Unprecedented Forest Fires” is probably because of the “ unprecedented” number of Middle Eastern Invaders who have taken up residence in the Swedish Forests. Cooking and heating would be from “camp fires” some of which will get out of control. So what? It’s not their forest …

      Since when are Forest Fires caused by Global Warming? They’re either man-made or set by lightning. From what I’ve been reading (but unfortunately I didn’t keep references) there has been a rise in lightning strikes globally.

      Look for stormy weather over the last two years and look for the Middle Eastern Invader.

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      • #
        sophocles

        As for the recent unprecedented weather there is the magnetic pole swap as detailed in
        the #1 risk to earth:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VVgUZv9ccyQ.

        The weakening of the planetary magnetic field means the Solar Wind stuffs around with the lower atmosphere more than it previously could, which messes with the weather. It hasn’t finished with us yet.

        Meanwhile the ignorant idiots keep on with their pronouncements …

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      • #

        You forgot no go areas where fire engines and police can no longer go because a) they do not have enough personnel to protect themselves and b) the government (before but in limbo now) do not want to harm the immigrants and order the services to keep away. I remember catching a Hovercraft (from Copenhagen) to Malmo when it was still peaceful.

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    • #
      RickWill

      CO2 is greening the planet. The rate of growth of trees in high latitudes has increased quite dramatically. The forest increase in productivity is spectacular:
      https://www.swedishwood.com/about_wood/choosing-wood/wood-and-the-environment/the-forest-and-sustainable-forestry/

      My view is that management practice is not keeping up with the rate of increase.

      Trees have been starved for thousands of years. Plants have evolved to cope with starvation level CO2 and humans are restoring the balance. We have to learn to live with more productive plant life on the planet. The Arctic has been well treed in the past as evidenced by the coal reserves within the Arctic circle.

      There is a comment above on the need for mowing grass in Adelaide. I seem to be doing a lot more tree lopping in my suburban plot to keep trees under control. I can actually see things like wisteria growing. If I park my car for a day under the pergola with a wisteria on it the vine will be wrapped around the mirrors.

      There is no dispute that CO2 levels are rising. There is little or no dispute that the planet is greening. I would need to actually look at long temperature trends in a region to determine if it is actually warming or cooling. There would need to be a detailed study to determine if there is an increase in forest fires in some location and isolating the dominant cause is not simple. It is likely it can be sheeted to increasing CO2 but I suspect more significantly through forest productivity creating more forested area with higher fuel content. It is better to deal with the forest productivity directly rather than trying to starve the trees again.

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    • #
      Peter

      We had a very warm summer in 2018, compared to 2107 which was cold with lots of rain.There was an unusually long heatwave from the beginning of May to late July 2018. The temperature in May and July 2018 were the warmest ever recorded in Sweden. The mid-July, temperatures in Scandinavia were more than 10°C (18°F) above normal.The total forested area in Sweden is 24 million hectares. Approximately 25 thousand hectares were affected in the summer of 2018.
      In less than 100 years, Sweden’s forest assets have doubled. And since the felling rate is less than the growth rate, the volume of forest continues to increase by a net annual increment. 70 percent of Sweden’s land area is covered by forest, primarily coniferous forest. Deciduous forest only dominates in the far south. All the forest in Sweden can be defined as cultured forest, which means forest that is cultivated and managed. Only the northernmost mountain regions have areas of virgin forest, areas that have not been affected by agriculture or silviculture. Since 1950, about 60 % of the original ‘productive forest land’ has been clear-cut and replaced with tree plantations and managed stands. This has resulted in a fragmented landscape consisting mainly of clear-cut areas and tree stands of different ages. Today,over half (60 %) of the Swedish timber estate, excluding protected forests, is less than 60 years old. Forests with a naturally diverse mix of trees of different ages, sizes and species, have mostly been replaced with even-aged stands of a single species, mostly spruce, pine or non-native species. Even-aged plantations composed of a single tree species are more vulnerable to damage through diseases, insect attack, wind, drought and fire.

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    • #
  • #
    Mark M

    Bangladesh landmass ‘is growing’

    New research shows Bangladesh may not be as vulnerable to rising sea levels caused by climate change as previously feared, scientists in Dhaka say.

    They say satellite images show the country’s landmass is actually growing because of sediment dumped by rivers.

    A report by UN scientists has projected that rising sea levels will inundate 17% of Bangladesh by 2050, making about 30 million people homeless.

    2008: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7532949.stm

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    • #
      Tom O

      The interesting consideration here would be that yes, the land mass might be growing by sediment transported by rivers, but that doesn’t “raise” the level of the land. The question them becomes, if sea level IS rising, then what is causing the land to rise as well, and why isn’t the rise in the land mass showing up in the same manner as the sea level?

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      • #
        garyh845

        Have a thought here. For coral atolls, with SLR somewhere in the 7-9in/100yr range, coral easily adapts and grows with SLR. Falling SL would result in massive destruction of corals growing near the surface – is that what they want?

        But, when it comes to islands – generally to be the top of ancient, or active volcano, I suspect that erosion is in play. During periods of time when SLR is more in the order of meters/100yrs (just prior to the Holocene), even as sediment from erosion flows down to the land/sea boundary, the rising ocean probably quickly washes most of it away – perhaps erodes even more. However, in the current environment of slowly rising seas, the sediments have more time to settle out – to build up beaches, etc; thus; the island can actually grow in size with moderate SLR.

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    • #
      sophocles

      … the Witch Hunters and the bozoes are busy. Mankind is to blame for all change …

      The increasing coastlines, where sea level is supposed to inundate, makes a mockery of Sea Level Rise and coastal property remains a good acquisition/investment …. again, still, whatever.

      It will be interesting to hear the excuses mechanisms for the change. There will never be an apology for getting it wrong…
      🙂

      To GaryH:
      Good point with erosion. It could be working hand in glove with tectonic action. Follow the tectonic plate edges where the subduction zones are. Volcanoes always form alongside these zones, usually on the other side of the trench from the subducting plate. One side of the zone rises, the other side falls. Fiji had to move a village recently, not because of rising seas, although the effect was the same, but because the land was sinking through subduction.

      Almost all the Pacific Islands are volcanic. Through plate movement, they generally form island chains. The islands are more likely to be dormant rather than extinct. Volcanoes rise and fall with magma movement well below them. Iwo Jima has risen metres over the last century. It will erupt hugely again one day. In the meantime, it keeps having little pressure-relieving burps.

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  • #
    Jeff

    If most islands are growing I wonder how much is natural processes versus man made reclamation.

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    • #
      el gordo

      There is a lot of that going on, but putting aside reclamation there is something else happening. Axel Morner said SLR stopped in the Maldives around 1970 and has remained stable ever since, so I wondered if its cyclic.

      ‘A generalised additive model of Australia’s two longest records (Fremantle and Sydney) reveals the presence of both linear and non-linear long-term sea-level trends, with both records showing larger rates of rise between 1920 and 1950, relatively stable mean sea levels between 1960 and 1990 and an increased rate of rise from the early 1990s.

      N J White 2014

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  • #
    Graeme No.3

    July 24 Nearly 100 people were forced to leave their homes overnight in Sweden, emergency officials said Thursday, as dozens of forest fires rage across the country as far north as the Arctic Circle.

    July 30 The wildfire situation across Sweden had significantly improved on Monday, following a weekend of rain which was welcomed by the firefighters who have been battling for weeks to bring the fires under control.
    There were still 12 fires burning across the country on Monday afternoon, but this was a huge improvement on the previous week when between 30 and 70 fires were burning each day.
    The major fires covered around 19,000 hectares in total, across the municipalities of Gävleborg, Dalarna, and Jämtland.

    Sweden’s Civil Contingencies Agency (MSB) said the situation had improved enough for several of the firefighting aircraft and water bombers brought in from other countries to be able to return home .

    Looks like an outbreak due to drier weather that summer, hardly a catastrophic case.

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  • #

    Another amazing property of our present sea level rise is its inability to shift silt.

    I mentioned how the Greeks would have much more trouble holding back the Persians at Thermopylae now because the space between mountain and sea is a wide plain cut by a modern highway. Not a good location for Thermopylae movies, that’s for sure.

    Critical ancient sea ports like Ephesus and Ostia still lie well inland. Of course, nobody’s maintaining a channel anymore, and Ostia’s now the airport. But you’d reckon a catastrophic sea level rise – even if nobody can find it down at Coogee – would at least mean you’d get wet feet standing where they used to moor ships. Even Henry VIII’s coastal defenses are dry.

    Well, I’m sure there’s a bit of low-lying, overbuilt real estate somewhere which will do the right thing by CNN. “Is this the kind of low-lying, overbuilt real estate we want to leave to our kids and grand-kids?”

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  • #
    Rollo

    Increasing carbon is driving uncontrolled calcification of atolls. Oh no!

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    • #
      Kinky Keith

      Not the dreaded CaCO3.

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      • #
        TedM

        And don’t forget all that di-hydrogen -oxide that surrounds them Kinky. Really dangerous, you can drown in the stuff.

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        • #
          sophocles

          and you can drown in Oxygen Dihydride too. Both that and its relative Dihydrogen Monoxide are heavily loaded with soluble salts which can cause all sorts of mischief. Both form highly dangerous media for death by drowning.

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  • #
    pat

    NSW’s Coalition Govt!

    31 Oct: RenewEconomy: NSW launches emerging energy program to replace coal generation
    by Giles Parkinson
    The New South Wales Coalition government on Wednesday launched one of the most significant energy transition projects in Australia, with an Emerging Energy Program that is designed to help replace most of the state’s ageing coal plants with wind, solar and storage over the next 15 years…

    The NSW Emerging Energy Plan (LINK) is designed to support the commercialisation of new large-scale projects in NSW that use emerging, dispatchable technology.
    It is offering up to $10 million per project, for a total of $55 million. But it is not the scale of the initiative that is significant, it is the acceptance that the energy transition is profound, rapid and unstoppable.
    “We are not seeking to accelerate the closure of coal-fired generators or delay their closure,” energy minister Don Harwin told RenewEconomy. “The transition is happening, this helps prepare us.”…

    The new initiative was launched by Harwin at an industry briefing – attended by some 400 people – at NSW Parliament House on Wednesday, and included presentations from AEMO chief executive Audrey Zibelman and Australian Renewable Energy Agency CEO Darren Miller…

    An emissions intensity cap of 0.5 tonnes of Co2-e has been placed on any projects. This effectively rules out coal – as the idea of “clean coal” is nothing but a marketing term. It may allow for some form of gas generation, but such projects may struggle to compete with the falling cost of wind and solar and storage. It specifically rules out upgrades and extensions of existing plant…
    This graph above shows more detail about the energy transition anticipated by AEMO and highlighted by the NSW government on the front page of its presentation…GRAPH

    Zibelman described the energy transformation as “massive” and said it was happening “faster and deeper” in Australia than anywhere else. She compared AEMO’s role to that of “foot soldiers” out in the field, seeing the “incoming” and learning how to change and adapt quickly to the new technologies.
    “We want to take maximum advantage of the zero marginal cost of wind and solar, but we need to make sure we can turn on things and turn off things. To have a fully dispatchable system is essential.”…

    “This is a welcome first step, but the package lacks ambition and will not close the gap between NSW and other states that have acted more boldly to ramp up renewables and reduce their climate pollution,” said Nature Conservation Council Senior Climate and Energy Campaigner Dr Brad Smith…
    The NCC wants the NSW government to re-invest $2 billion, or half of the proceeds of the sale of its stake in Snowy Hydro, into a regional renewable energy fund that will underpin dispatchable clean energy, create jobs in wind and solar farms, and support households to install batteries…
    https://reneweconomy.com.au/nsw-launches-emerging-energy-program-to-replace-coal-generation-89992/

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    • #
      Kinky Keith

      We are trapped and doomed to permanent enslavement.

      Crazy _ how do we deal with this abuse of trust.

      The Money is still too easy for them to get at.

      Don’t vote for them.

      KK

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    • #
      beowulf

      Don Harwin is anti-Trump, pro-green; an economist by trade.

      When NSW was having its heatwave on 10/2/17, he’s the useless Minister for Energy and Utilities who described wind power’s contribution of a pathetic 0.71% of the grid demand or 15% of its nameplate as “plenty of wind power at all times”. Apparently 0.71% = plenty. The official spin was that “wind and solar saved the day” while “coal let us down.”

      This man needs watching or better still, dumping. He’s a male version of Zibelman/Schott.

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      yarpos

      They really believe the “transition” is real with the current crop of intermittents? if the could just walk us through a practical walking scenario that would be appreciated, rather than visionary rainbows and unicorns thinking.

      They even throw in the “we are falling behind” statement that is trotted out from time to time. This is another one where they never really say who/what we are falling behind and if that target status is in fact a good idea generally or a good idea in Australia.

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      Robber

      I’m still waiting to see what dispatchable clean energy looks like in Australia – nuclear? In Tasmania, NZ and Scandinavian countries it is hydro.

      50

  • #
    pat

    sea level rise not mentioned?

    1 Nov: ClimateChangeNews: Islands need support to face shocking impacts of 1.5C global warming
    By Thoriq Ibrahim
    (Thoriq Ibrahim is the environment and energy minister of the Maldives and has been chairman of the Alliance of Small Island States since 2015)
    I was chairman of the Alliance of Small Island States (Aosis) when our group fought for the report at the Paris climate change conference back in 2015. The findings came as a shock, even for those of us who have been sounding the climate change alarm for decades…
    In fact, along with the IPCC report, Aosis successfully advocated for setting a global temperature goal of 1.5C in Paris. As countries on the frontline of the climate crisis, we have long devoted an enormous amount of political capital to pushing for the most ambitious temperature target as possible…

    But, in light of the report, as well my own observations as the environment minister for the one of the world’s lowest-lying countries, I fear we have entered a new phase in the climate talks, one where we must now devote at least as much energy to securing our priorities on adaptation and loss and damage as we do on mitigation ambition.
    As small island leaders, we know that the cost of adapting to climate impacts is straining our budgets.

    In the Maldives, for instance, we are witnessing prolonged droughts in our outlying atolls. Such extremes have major implications for ensuring our people have enough water to drink. In emergencies, we have been forced to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to ship supplies from our desalination plant in the capital to the affected areas.
    At the same time, we have been forced to build coastal protection structures around numerous islands to help manage rising seas and erosion. In the past 5 years, we have spent $85 million on such projects.

    We were fortunate to be among the first group of countries to receive support from the Green Climate Fund for an adaptation project on water security. When complete, it is projected to provide freshwater to over 100,000 people in a group of outer islands at a cost of about $28 million ($4 million of which came from our own budget).
    This represents a significant return on investment by any measure, but like all small islands we face dramatically higher adaptation costs if we hope to build resilience against the kind of impacts the IPCC projects…

    Globally, the cost of adapting to climate change in developing countries could rise to between $280 and $500 billion per year by 2050, according to a 2016 UN Environment report…
    Make no mistake: it would be suicide for the world to continue to emit greenhouse gases at the current pace and we should all demand a rapid transition to renewable energy. But for small island nations, it would also be suicide not to use every lever of power we have to demand what is fair and just: the support we need to manage a crisis that has been thrust upon us.
    http://www.climatechangenews.com/2018/11/01/islands-need-support-face-shocking-impacts-1-5c-global-warming/

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    • #
      Kinky Keith

      This Greenhouse Warming thing has No Legs scientifically, is a Morally Bankrupt abuse of Trust and it should be soundly confronted and the perpetrators brought to Justice.

      This is purely and simply Slavery Mark 11.

      An abomination to all decent citizens.

      KK

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      Bill In Oz

      What’s the population of the Maldive atoll islands ?
      Wikipedia says 341,000 people with the highest birth rate & population growth rate in the region. No wonder they are running out of fresh water.
      Seems to me they are bringing about there very own ecological catastrophe very rapidly.

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      • #
        yarpos

        could we sell them a desal plant maybe? seems like they would be better placed improving their water supply than trying to manipulate the global climate. All though the climate option does provide a potential large source of discretionary funds and the other is a cost. Hang on, I might be on to something!

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    • #
      RickWill

      Population of Maldives has increased 70% in the last 20 years. I wonder how much the water catchments have increased in that time?

      At least they are addressing the real issue:
      http://www.searo.who.int/entity/maternal_reproductive_health/documents/mal-fp.pdf?ua=1

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  • #
    pat

    “The WORLD has seriously underestimated”!

    1 Nov: BBC: Climate change: Oceans ‘soaking up more heat than estimated’
    By Matt McGrath
    The world has seriously underestimated the amount of heat soaked up by our oceans over the past 25 years, researchers say.
    Their study suggests that the seas have absorbed 60% more than previously thought (LINK).
    They say it means the Earth is more sensitive to fossil fuel emissions than estimated.
    This could make it much more difficult to keep global warming within safe levels this century…

    But this new study says that every year, for the past 25 years, we have put about 150 times the amount of energy used to generate electricity globally into the seas – 60% more than previous estimates.
    That’s a big problem.
    Scientists base their predictions about how much the Earth is warming by adding up all the excess heat that is produced by the known amount of greenhouse gases that have been emitted by human activities.
    This new calculation shows that far more heat than we thought has been going into oceans. But it also means that far more heat than we thought has been generated by the warming gases we have emitted.
    Therefore more heat from the same amount of gas means the Earth is more sensitive to CO2…
    “It is a big concern,” said lead author Dr Laure Resplandy from Princeton University in New Jersey…
    “There is also sea level, if you warm the ocean more you will have more thermal expansion and therefore more sea level rise.”…
    “The heat stored in the ocean will eventually come back out if we start cooling the atmosphere by reducing the greenhouse effect,” said Dr Resplandy…
    The study has been published in the journal Nature…READ ON
    https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-46046067

    TWEET: Zeke Hausfather: The new Resplandy et al paper in Nature on OHC is fascinating, but I’m a bit skeptical of takes in the WaPo @chriscmooney article that it would imply higher sensitivity/lower carbon budgets. 1/2
    LINK
    31 Oct 2018
    Many prior OHC records ran a bit cooler than climate models (specifically the CMIP5 multi-model mean). The new Resplandy et al estimate runs a bit higher, but has large enough uncertainties that it well-encompasses model values. 2/2
    https://twitter.com/hausfath/status/1057828126787432449?s=09

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      Bill In Oz

      Some simple logic : More heat being absorbed by the oceans = thermal expansion by the oceans sea level rise.

      But the research paper posted by Jo says that atolls are not being flooded by rising seas.

      Sooooooo….If it ain’t happening, It ain’t happening…

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      yarpos

      I knew it, its worse than we thought!!

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      RickWill

      How can more heat cause cooling?? Authors should be out looking for a clue rather than writing such nonsense.

      The precipitable water content above the oceans has decreased this century. That can only be the result of ocean surface cooling. The ARGO data to 2000m shows 2018 cooler than 2016. No one knows with any accuracy what is going on below 2000m but it is not something that could be caused by any surface imbalances in the last 100 years. Time constants are way too long for significant heat at the surface to be transported below 2000m.

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  • #
    pat

    DM is fully converted:

    1 Nov: Daily Mail: Glaciers at the North AND South Poles are shrinking at an ‘unprecedented’ pace, warn scientists
    •An enormous iceberg broke off Antarctica’s Pine Island Glacier this week
    •It followed news from Canada that glaciers are retreating at an alarming rate
    •The studies highlight the rising instability of the planet’s poles as global warming grips the icy regions
    by Harry Pettit
    Glaciers in both the North and South Poles are melting at an ‘unprecedented’ rate as global warming tightens its grip on the planet’s coldest regions.
    An enormous iceberg about five times the size of Manhattan broke off Antarctica’s Pine Island Glacier this week only a month after a crack first appeared.

    On the other side of the planet, glaciers in Canada’s Yukon territory are retreating at an alarming pace, triggering dust storms and drastic shifts to local water sources.
    The studies highlight the rising instability of the planet’s poles as the effects of global climate change take their toll…

    Two teams working in the North and South Poles have reported startling glacier shrinkage this week…
    The researchers, from Canada’s Simon Fraser University, warned the glacier cannot compensate for the volume of ice it is losing…
    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-6337275/Glaciers-North-South-poles-shrinking-rapidly-predicted.html

    30 Oct: LiveScience: Antarctica’s Pine Island Glacier Just Lost Enough Ice to Cover Manhattan 5 Times Over
    By Laura Geggel
    https://www.livescience.com/63974-pine-island-iceberg-calves-2018.html

    28 Oct: CBC: Dry lakes and dust storms: Dramatic changes to Yukon glaciers are warning for planet, researchers say
    Yukon’s enormous glaciers are thinning fast, creating huge environmental changes
    by Susan Ormiston
    https://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/national-yukon-glaciers-climate-change-kaskawulsh-1.4873035

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      Kinky Keith

      The constant cacophony is bizarre.

      Baseless alarmism for financial and political gain.

      KK

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      ivan

      I see no mention of the volcanoes under that part of Antarctica might be part of the problem or the fact that ice build up in the center forces bits to fall off the edges when there is no land mass to support them.

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    • #
      sophocles

      Light a volcano under a glacier, and it’s not the volcano which melts … 🙂

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    • #
      theRealUniverse

      1 Nov: Daily Mail: Glaciers at the North AND South Poles are shrinking at an ‘unprecedented’ pace, warn scientists alarmists

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      el gordo

      A Manhattan size berg slips into the sea from Pine Island, naturally.

      ‘Observations from geophysical surveys and long-term oceanographic instruments deployed down bore holes into the ocean cavity reveal a buoyancy-driven boundary layer within a basal channel that melts the channel apex by 0.06 meter per day, with near-zero melt rates along the flanks of the channel. A complex pattern of such channels is visible throughout the Pine Island Glacier shelf.’

      Stanton et al 2013

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      el gordo

      Around 2200 years ago there was a huge volcanic eruption near Pine Island and ‘In 2018 it was found that there is a substantial volcanic heat source beneath Pine Island Glacier approximately half as large as the active Grimsvötn volcano on Iceland.

      ‘The same year a study was published concluding that the bedrock below WAIS was uplifted at a higher rate than previously thought, the authors suggested this could eventually help to stabilize the ice sheet.’ wiki

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    pat

    ditch the UN:

    31 Oct: Irish Times: Climate change: Ireland failing on ‘human rights obligations’, says UN
    Government must take more effective measures, according to UN human rights expert
    by Kevin O’Sullivan
    The UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights and the Environment has called the Government’s failure to take more effective measures to address climate change “a breach of Ireland’s human rights obligations”.
    The detailed statement issued by Special Rapporteur Prof David Boyd represents a landmark intervention by a UN human rights expert in an Irish environmental law case.

    Reinforcing arguments made by Friends of the Irish Environment (FIE) in their case against the Government, which is due to go to hearing early next year, it highlights threats climate change poses to the right to life and other human rights in the Irish context.

    It states the Government “must take additional actions on an urgent basis on climate change”, and concludes “climate change clearly and adversely impacts the right to life, a right which the Government of Ireland is legally obligated to respect, protect and fulfil”…
    “It must reduce emissions as rapidly as possible, applying the maximum available resources. This conclusion follows from the nature of Ireland’s obligations under international human rights law and international environmental law.”…

    Climate Case Ireland spokeswoman Sadhbh O’Neill said the UN Special Rapporteur’s intervention in the case is “hugely significant”.
    “Ireland is under international scrutiny because we are not doing our fair share to reduce emissions…
    The Special Rapporteur’s 13-page statement has been submitted by FIE to the High Court as part of its ongoing legal proceedings against the Government. The case is scheduled to be heard at the Four Courts over four days from January 22nd, 2019…

    The UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights and the Environment is appointed by the UN Human Rights Council. Its mandate holders act independently to “examine, monitor, advise, and publicly report” on human rights problems in monitoring sovereign nations and democratically elected governments and policies. This is why the Irish intervention is believed to be unprecedented, Ms O’Neill told The Irish Times…
    The council has repeatedly adopted resolutions reiterating its concerns about the effects of climate change on human rights, particularly those of the most vulnerable…
    https://www.irishtimes.com/news/environment/climate-change-ireland-failing-on-human-rights-obligations-says-un-1.3681485

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    pat

    ditch Paris first:

    1 Nov: Guardian: 15 environmental protesters arrested at civil disobedience campaign in London
    More than 1,000 campaigners blocked roads around Parliament Square calling for action on the climate emergency
    by Matthew Taylor
    Fifteen environmental protesters, who blocked the roads outside the Houses of Parliament in the first stage of an “escalating campaign of civil disobedience” have been arrested.
    More than 1,000 people from the newly formed Extinction Rebellion group issued a declaration of rebellion in London’s Parliament Square on Wednesday in an effort to draw attention to the unfolding climate emergency.

    The group, that included families, pensioners and teenagers, then sat down in the road blocking traffic at one of London’s busiest intersections for more than two hours as speakers from different faiths, Green party politicians and journalists warned about the unravelling environmental crisis
    Green MEP Molly Scott Cato told the crowd: “We are here because we have a deep love and spiritual connection to the planet.
    “We must rise up. When the law tells you to support something that your deep inner voice is fundamentally against, you should take non-violent direct action.”
    Other speakers included Guardian columnist George Monbiot and Green party MP Caroline Lucas…

    Wednesday’s protest was due to be a symbolic start to a campaign of civil disobedience that organisers say will bring large parts of London to a standstill next month…
    It will culminate with a sit-in protest in Parliament Square on 17 November and a series of planned occupations of London bridges.
    The “rebellion” has been backed by almost 100 senior academics from across the UK, including Rowan Williams, the former archbishop of Canterbury…

    “People are no longer prepared to sit back and watch our politicians and corporations drive us off the cliff of ecological destruction,” said one of the organisers, Gail Bradbrook. “This is an emergency situation and it needs an emergency response.”
    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/oct/31/15-environmental-protesters-arrested-at-civil-disobedience-campaign-in-london

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      yarpos

      So, 1000 people (Guardian estimate mind you) choose to block Londons city centre and enforce their views on their pet topic on everyone else. We must rise up! they say.

      Meanwhile the other 9 million-ish people in London get on with their lives and do something usefull.

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    pat

    could the ramping up of the CAGW lunacy be connected to the failure of the FakeNewsMSM (most especially BBC, which was still pumping out anti-BOlsonaro propaganda just hours before the polls opened) to stop Bolsonaro?

    31 Oct: BBC: Brazil: Bolsonaro plans threaten Amazon, say experts
    Brazil’s far-right President-elect Jair Bolsonaro will merge the ministries of agriculture and the environment, an aide says, in a move which critics say could endanger the Amazon rainforest.
    Mr Bolsonaro’s future chief of staff, Onyx Lorenzoni, announced the new “super ministry” as details of the new administration began to emerge.
    The controversial new Brazilian leader is supported by the agribusiness lobby…

    A former environment minister tweeted that the move was “tragic”.
    “This disastrous decision will bring serious damage to Brazil and will pass on to consumers abroad the idea that all Brazilian agribusiness survives thanks to the destruction of forests,” Marina Silva said.

    Earlier, Vice President-elect Hamilton Mourao dismissed environmentalists’ concerns about development in the Amazon, saying the government would act responsibly by managing the spread of agriculture in the region…
    Mr Bolsonaro, 63, has previously suggested that Brazil could pull out of the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change…

    In the run-up to the election he had suggested merging the agriculture and environment ministries, saying, “Let’s be clear: the future ministry will come from the productive sector. We won’t have any more fights over this.”
    ???Warned by activists that such a move would undermine the environment ministry’s controls on the commercial sector, he struck a more conciliatory tone saying he was “open to negotiation on that issue”….

    Mr Bolsonaro swept to victory in Sunday’s election, easily beating his left-wing rival Fernando Haddad.
    The former paratrooper is a deeply polarising figure who has in the past defended the actions of the country’s former military regime and said he is “in favour of dictatorship”.
    His populist approach has led to some media dubbing him “Trump of the Tropics”.
    https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-46039996

    31 Oct: France24: with AFP: Brazil’s Bolsonaro to merge environment and agriculture ministries
    Brazil’s far-right President-elect Jair Bolsonaro will merge the environment and agriculture ministries, an adviser confirmed Tuesday, a move activists have warned could imperil the Amazon rainforest.
    “Agriculture and environment will be in the same ministry,” lawmaker Onyx Lorenzoni, Bolsonaro’s likely chief of staff, told journalists after the president-elect huddled with his top advisers to begin forming his new government just two days after his election…
    A former environment minister, Marina Silva, called the decision “disastrous” and said that it would promote deforestation…

    Andre Nahur, the coordinator of the WWF’s climate change and energy programme in Brazil, told AFP in an interview that forests “guarantee that important sectors of the economy such as agrobusiness and energy continue producing and contributing to GDP”.
    “It’s vital the new president recognises the role that socio-environmental issues play in maintaining economic growth;” added Nahur.
    https://www.france24.com/en/20181031-brazil-bolsonaro-amazon-environment-agriculture-ministries

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  • #
    Anton

    BBC at it again:

    “The world has seriously underestimated the amount of heat soaked up by our oceans over the past 25 years, researchers say. Their study suggests that the seas have absorbed 60% more than previously thought. They say it means the Earth is more sensitive to fossil fuel emissions than estimated.”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-46046067

    The BBC article gives a link to a new paper in Nature (which is kindly not behind the usual Nature paywall). In a bit more detail:

    Since 2007, scientists have been able to rely on a system of almost 4,000 Argo floats that record temperature and salinity in the oceans around the world. But prior to this, the methods used to measure the heat in the ocean had many flaws and uncertainties. Now, researchers have developed what they say is a highly precise method of detecting the temperature of the ocean by measuring the amount of oxygen and carbon dioxide in the air. This allows them to accurately measure ocean temperatures globally, dating back to 1991, when accurate data from a global network of stations became available. The key element is the fact that as waters get warmer they release more carbon dioxide and oxygen into the air. “When the ocean warms, the amount of these gases that the ocean is able to hold goes down,” said Dr Resplandy.
    “So what we measured was the amount lost by the oceans, and then we can calculate how much warming we need to explain that change in gases.”

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    Roy Hogue

    How can that be when 97% of at least 3 or 4 scientists agree that sea level is rising? The only useful sea level measurement is at the shoreline of some land mass. Sea level in the middle of the ocean is meaningless for any practical purpose. So the islands must be shrinking in area if sea level is rising.

    Are these islands rising up out ot the sea at the same rate as the water is rising? Are the satellites measuring the wrong thing? Or are the 97% of 3 or 4 scientists wrong? Is the sea not really rising up to swallow all the dry land?

    What a conundrum. But at least all those Pacific Islanders can relax and we can stop sending them money by the truckload. Now if only this would work the way such things usually work and put a whole bunch of PhDs who had nothing to do in the first place out of a job we might make some progress. But that’s probably asking for too much.

    And the whole fuss is over a few silly millimeters a year. They don’t know if the land is sinking or the water is rising — oops, maybe because neither one is happening. And they don’t know where the water is coming from that supposedly raises the sea level in the first place. I would say, case dismissed with prejudice. Court is adjourned.

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    Ruairi

    Alarmists sensationalize,
    And exaggerate sea-level rise,
    When the rate is so small,
    That ‘most every atoll,
    Hasn’t decreased in area size.

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    pat

    an approved old, white, imperialist(?), gigantic carbon-footprinted male.
    despite the headline, the only CAGW in the novel-length piece comes at around paragrapha one zillion:

    1 Nov: Vanity Fair: “I Don’t Really See Any Value in Saying, ‘I Told You So,’”: Prince Charles on His Climate-Change Fight, Life with Camilla, and Becoming King
    As the Prince of Wales turns 70, James Reginato hops on a royal flight to catch up with the longest-waiting heir apparent in history…
    Impressive yet discreet, the aircraft is gray and blue inside and out, with 158 seats in three cabins on one deck. As it sits on the tarmac of R.A.F. Brize Norton, in Oxfordshire, and its two pilots and eight cabin crew prepare for flight, what would be the business class on a commercial plane fills up with Clarence House staff members: dark-suited, solemn-looking private secretaries, personal protection officers (P.P.O.’s), the royal doctor, a valet, Communications Secretary Julian Payne, and the Prince’s equerry, Major Harry Pilcher, as well as Hugh Green and Jacqui Meakin, the Duchess’s longtime hairdresser and stylist. In the rear cabin are dozens of uniformed military personnel—engineers, soldiers, baggage handlers, and other tactical officers—along with about five members of the British press who regularly report on the royals. And me. All journalists are later invoiced for their flights—the cost being comparable to an equivalent full-fare coach seat…

    In Nice, a military band plays the British and French national anthems and an honor guard stands at attention as T.R.H. disembark onto a red carpet at the end of which stands a long convoy of official vehicles…
    In Greece, there are visits to the presidential palace, a battleship, a monastery, and the Yacht Club, for swanky cocktails with shipping magnates…
    But when the Prince declines the plastic straw that comes with his freddo cappuccino—a cause célèbre for the likes of Adrian Grenier, Brooklyn Decker, and Neil deGrasse Tyson—the rejection becomes front-page news in Greece, where sipping your cold coffee from a plastic straw is de rigueur. (A few weeks later, McDonald’s will announce plans to phase out plastic straws across its 1,361 restaurants in Britain.)…

    CHANGE AGENT
    After dinner, he generally goes back to his study to write letters or read for a couple hours.
    In years past, many of those letters might have been to harangue politicians or editors, venting his opinions or dispensing advice on his pet issues. “He’s been expressing his views less and less,” a former Clarence House courtier says. “Everything that is too political he is transitioning out of.” Nevertheless, in written correspondence to me, Charles elaborated on climate change and other crises that “keep me awake at night.”

    “I don’t really see any value in saying, ‘I told you so,’” he wrote. “As a teenager, I remember feeling deeply about this appallingly excessive demolition job being done on every aspect of life. . .. In putting my head above the parapet on all these issues, and trying to remind people of their long-term, timeless relevance to our human experience—never mind trying to do something about them—I found myself in conflict with the conventional outlook which, as I discovered, is not exactly the most pleasant situation to find yourself.

    “One of [my] duties has been to find solutions to the vast challenges we face over accelerating climate change. . . . However, it seems to take forever to alert people to the scale of the challenge. Over forty years ago I remember making a speech about the problems of plastic and other waste, but at that stage nobody was really interested and I was considered old-fashioned, out of touch and ‘anti-science’ for warning of such things,” the Prince wrote. “If we don’t engage with these issues, and many other related and critical problems that they inevitably compound, we will all be the victims. Nothing escapes.”…
    https://www.vanityfair.com/style/2018/11/prince-charles-becoming-king-camilla-british-monarchy

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    pat

    both behind paywall:

    Bureau of Meteorology’s rainfall outlook dismissed as worthless
    The Weekly Times-30 Oct. 2018
    THE Bureau of Meteorology’s three-month rainfall outlook is grossly inaccurate, despite massive taxpayer investments in new forecasting …with farmers dismissing it as delivering little, if any, value, …

    Ed Gannon: Farmers think forecasts are a bit of a BOM
    Opinion-Herald Sun-31 Oct. 2018

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    Richard Ilfeld

    A fifth grade climate researcher could see the problem in your report.
    You are dealing with real islands.
    The sea level rise is evident in the model islands.
    The model populations are terrified.
    Send money to the UN to distribute to these terrified populations, so they can capitalize more
    condominiums and airports.
    We’ll all fly to these model islands on our theoretical electric airplanes.
    Or perhaps take a yellow submarine.

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  • #
    Dave in the States

    Last night I had left the TV on the PBS station by accident, so I overheard the opening monologue of the next program as I was beginning to doze off. I wasn’t watching, just hearing it, so when the narrator starting rambling on about how New York City and Tokyo are facing an existential threat, and how we need to act now to alleviate the threat I knew it was about sea level rise. They gave no real data, such that sea level rise is only a few millimeters a year, just leaving it up to imagination of the viewer about how dangerous the threat was. But the tone and background music was scare. Whipping up a scare. I turned and looked and the program title was up. The title was Our Sinking Cities and Climate Change. That’s when I switched it off.

    As I was drifting off, I thought: How ironic the previous program was about Iron Age Celts offering sacrifices to idol gods, including great wealth in their society, and even human sacrifices, hoping to control the weather.

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    TdeF

    As for noticing every sand bank, the islands of the Tahiti group are tall but tiny. Far younger than other future coral atolls, the pointy bit in the middle is still sharp and majestic. It has yet to sink over millions of years.
    Take Bora Bora, the prettiest and used as the US base in WW2, the island from the movie South Pacific. The island is only 12sq miles. 2km long and a few hundred metres wide to 700 metres rising as much in the middle. You can drive around it in about 20 minutes. Bloody Mary’s is a good place to stop for a drink. That’s it.

    The island country of Nauru is old, circular and also has 10,000 people. Roughly 4km x 6km, the beach is about 20km. It is either paradise or hell, depending on your view of living on a flat coral atoll in the tropics.

    Of course you would notice every sandbank! The 10,000 people who live on the island could name the crabs. If the people joined hands they would reach half way around the island. If the sea was rising, they would have noticed. Also the number of ecological researchers in paradise in bikinis and board shorts is possibly the highest in the world.

    I might also point out the islanders knew about the crown of thorns starfish and sang traditional songs about how it came and went and the reef was much improved for the pruning. It was a song of thanks and praise. The Americans abandoned plans to destroy the starfish. It shows how we are in a period of massive ecological intervention to ‘save’ the coral and the planet when everything is perfectly natural.

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      TdeF

      Also note TuaMotu is far to the East. A much older group of atolls (mountains sunk). This one is 9km x 3km with a big hole in the middle where the mountain sank. The motu (wall of coral) is around 300 metres wide. Uninhabitable. No water, no vegetation. Of course they have mapped it extensively. Researchers have to do something to justify living in the beautiful Tahiti islands. Only the imminent end of the planet would have them make such personal sacrifice.

      By the way, the ocean is 3.5km deep for most of the Pacific. All these atolls are sitting on sinking mountains, as guessed by Charles Darwin. At Bikini Atoll during the atom bomb testing, the Americans drilled 3km. Solid coral. Darwin was right. Obviously fragile stuff which seeks sea level, which is another reasons these islands cannot sink. They are still growing.

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      yarpos

      Its often puzzles me the way “conservationist” and “naturalists” want to actually be interventionists and manipulators.

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    Mark M

    Meanwhile, in the shaky isles …

    2012: Century old map throws new doubt on climate change sea level claims.

    A new book on the history of New Zealand has inadvertently stirred the climate change debate by revealing a near zero sea level increase over the past century.

    The book, The Great Divide, includes a 100 year old map of Cloudy Bay lagoons in New Zealand, drafted back in 1912 to show the location of 20 kilometres of canals dug with
    wooden spades by ancient Maori.

    However, when the 1912 map is shown alongside a satellite image of the same location from Google Earth, it reveals not only the startling accuracy of the original map (drafted at a time when aerial photography did not exist) but also a stunning lack of Pacific Ocean encroachment on the narrow shoal linking the lagoons to the sea.

    https://investigatemagazine.co.nz/2725/old-map-throws-doubt-on-climate-change-sea-level-claims/

    Bonus!

    Bed-wetting Failed Doomsday Global Warming believers will often cite this article as proof of their apocalypse, but, where is the sea level rise?

    Did a 1912 Newspaper Article Predict Global Warming?

    A 14 August 1912 article from a New Zealand newspaper contained a brief story about how burning coal might produce future warming by adding carbon dioxide to the atmosphere.

    A newspaper clipping from 1912 that anticipates the global warming potential of burning coal is authentic and consistent with the history of climate science.

    https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/1912-article-global-warming/

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      Greg in NZ

      Mark – or should that be “Ew, Stimpy!” – I wonder if any of these bed-wetters are familiar with the lay of the land around Cloudy Bay and the Cook Strait – that ‘great divide’ between the North and South islands – as in what’s underneath the supposed rising seas…

      https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0025322709000206Morphostructure and evolution of submarine canyons across an active margin: Cook Strait sector of the Hikurangi Margin, New Zealand‘ 2009.

      As I commented in an earlier post about sea levels: I’m still surfing over a volcanic lava reef I used to wag school to surf back in the 1970s (40+ years) and the waves still break exactly the same in the exact same spot without a drop of water out of place. Then again, I’m a long way north of Cloudy Bay and that fractured, shattered, broken, earthquake-shaken piece of schist. 😉

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      theRealUniverse

      “A 14 August 1912 article from a New Zealand newspaper..” I think thats was about the time Arrhenius published his science on CO2 at that time and led to Svante said (1906) that double CO2 would raise temperatures by 6C, then forced to reduce his claim by Angstrom.
      Fathers of the GHG theory.

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      • #
        Sceptical Sam

        Arrhenius theorised and conducted experiments in the laboratory. And he got it wrong.

        After being shown to be in error (by Knut Ångström) he adjusted his estimate for a doubling of CO2 downwards to 1.6 Celsius degrees, and concluded that the world would be a better place for being a bit warmer.

        Arrhenius had no knowledge of the natural variation that occurs in the world’s climate; no knowledge of the PDO, of El Nino, of La Nina, of cosmic ray theory, of insolation variability, of the ENSO phenomenon, the North Atlantic Oscillation, or of the North-South dipole structure over the Southern Pacific and so on.

        Accordingly, Arrhenius theorising is an invalid basis for the alarmists’ hypothesis that manmade CO2 is the predominant driver of global warming.

        This is what he finally said in 1906:

        1st translation:
        “In a similar way I calculate that a reduction of the carbon dioxide content by half or an increase of the same amount to twice would correspond to temperature changes of -1.5°C or + 1.6 °C.”

        2nd translation:
        “Likewise, I calculate that a halving or doubling of the CO2 concentration would be equivalent to changes of temperature of –1.5 °C or +1.6° C respectively.”

        Arrhenius, S., 1906, Die vermutliche Ursache der Klimaschwankungen. Meddelanden från K. Vetenskapsakademiens Nobelinstitut 1: 2, 1ff.

        See page 4:

        http://members.casema.nl/errenwijlens/co2/Arrhenius_1906.pdf

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  • #
    Jonesy

    There is an excellent photo survey record from WW2. The US photo surveyed every last pimple in the Pacific for strategic purposes. It would be pretty simple to compare current shoreline with the shoreline of 76 years ago.

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    • #
      Kinky Keith

      What a potential mess that could be for the warming dream.

      Fact is that sea levels have been oscillating Downwards for the last 7,000 years.

      Ephesus anyone?

      KK

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  • #
    PeterS

    Wasting time. The left repel truth like water off a duck’s back.

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    TdeF

    One simple observation of water in these atolls, in fact inside any of the Pacific island surrounded by near complete coral rings is that the water level inside the atoll is near constant, regardless of waves and tides outside. In my drive around Bora Bora I noted the boats were lifted just out of the water. This prevents a worm invasion and works only because the water level is constant. Obvious only in hindsight.

    There is always a break or two, or the water would pile up inside the reef and damage it. As Captain James Cook noted, there is generally a river opposite the break, a useful observation. However it is still true that the beach water does not come and go, ebb and return as at normal beach. This enables people to live right on the water, as on a lake.

    Most importantly and very unlike ocean beaches, they would notice instantly if they were losing land or the water was rising. Without satellites or complex instruments.

    Compare for example the East coast of England which can lose 1 metre a year to coastal erosion. If the islands were vanishing, it would be very obvious.

    So why do these Pacific islands need money for Climate Change? I also can’t imagine it gets any hotter in the tropics surrounded and totally moderated by water.

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      TdeF

      Plus I doubt it could rain any more in the wet season or that they suffer from drought. So what exactly is the problem requiring hundreds of millions from Australia? Climate Change? Sea Rise? Where?

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    TdeF

    My neighbour went fishing last week near the Great Barrier Reef off Port Douglas. The charter boat had excellent radar and you could see all the living coral 50 metres down. Not 5 metres. The Great Barrier Reef is much bigger than people understand and deeper than they can possibly dive. We are being conned with this idea that the near surface coral is all that matters, the stuff tourists can see.

    The real problem is that 50 year events have not been seen before as we just started living in Far North Queensland. I blame the invention of the airconditioner. Ecologists are doing their best to get rid of airconditioners too, blaming the South Pole Ozone hole on the 2% of people who live south of the Tropic of Capricorn. If it was due to CF4, the real question is why there isn’t one over the North Pole let alone 50x as big?

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    • #
      theRealUniverse

      “question is why there isn’t one over the North Pole let alone 50x as big?”
      That was the CF4 scam (~1980’s) same as the globull war-mung scam we face now.

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    Mark M

    We’re gonna need a bigger boat!

    Love the idea of people flying long distances to talk about the alleged critical importance of removing CO2 from the air …

    Nov. 1: Negative emissions: Scientists meet in Australia to discuss removing CO2 from air

    https://www.carbonbrief.org/negative-emissions-scientists-meet-in-australia-to-discuss-removing-co2-from-air?utm_content=bufferd75a3&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

    via tom nelson

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    • #
      TdeF

      It amazes me that any ‘scientists’ actually believe we control the level of CO2 in the air. That is not only extremely unlikely, it would have to be proven.

      The essential made up story is that the CO2 from oil is filling up the atmosphere with CO2 without anyone actually proving that is true. There was CO2 in the atmosphere before the car. Who put that there? Who decided how much?

      Water levels do not rise if ice melts. It has been convenient to let people believe that they do, even ‘scientists’.

      CO2 levels do not rise when the exchange between water and air is so fast. How else do fish breathe? Where do they get their oxygen? Do they have to wait 80 years or forever, the times given by the IPCC?

      The whole Global Warming, CO2, Climate Change scam plays on repeat, without evidence.

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      • #
        TdeF

        The extra 2 Billion Indians and Chinese on the planet since 1950 output far more CO2 in breathing than the whole of Australia. What sacrifices are they making? Or is there a Green plan to cull them too, like the cattle? Perhaps the UN could talk the Indians into being vegetarians? They are already and the cows are sacred.

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        • #
          TdeF

          Last month while I was in India, one state declared the Cow the head of State and the Mother of India. The Greens have another view. One day the cows must go, then the kangaroos, then the camels and sheep and goats. It’s a sort of madness. Saving the planet by eliminating all living things. For whom?

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          • #
            theRealUniverse

            Maybe they are waiting for another asteroid impact to finish us all off!

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          • #
            Greebo

            For whom?

            Cockroaches, I expect.

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            • #
              TdeF

              Termites are a cockroach. Major methane emitters as they digest cellulose. So the cockroaches and termites have to go too. All the insects. At least according to the all knowing IPCC.

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            • #
              TdeF

              I also note the carrion eaters survived the major extinctions. Plenty of food.
              Crocodiles. Sharks. Lobsters. Someone always survives. Too bad about the dinosaurs, but then chickens are dinosaur stock. A pterodactyl chicken with a 40 foot wingspan? Col Sanders would be afraid.

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      • #
        theRealUniverse

        Most of the CO2 abut 95% is in the oceans, FACT CO2 dissolves more readily in cold water and released in warm water. The ocean temperature determines the levels, and that is controlled by one only thing..the Sun, with some yet unknown amount by underwater volcanoes.

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        • #
          TdeF

          About 98%. Also the ocean is very heavy, at one atmosphere per ten metres, the ocean is on average 3.5km deep, so 350x as heavy. CO2 is also extremely compressible, as we know from soda syphons. At 350 atmospheres it is a liquid.

          Anyway the real deceit is to pretend our environment is land. It isn’t. Or at least it wasn’t. As human embryos form, they go through a tadpole stage and exhibit gills. The fact is that the massive ecosystem from which we and the plants escaped is in the vast oceans.

          Water covers 75% of our planet (Antarctica has a frozen ocean 4km thick on top of the land) So we have ancient salt water in our veins, 400sq metres of wet tissue to swap oxygen into our blood. We all came ultimately from the oceans. Bananas have 60% overlap with our genes but the Zebra fish has been genome mapped at 76% human!

          So if only our ‘scientists’ would start to come to terms with the whole ecosystem. Water controls our weather. Water in every form, but especially the huge oceans. As for gas, it moves freely and oxygen is clearly in the water and can leave quickly and obviously can enter quickly. Consider the aerating pump in your aquarium? What’s it doing? Why is it needed?

          However we are told CO2 and presumably O2 are trapped on each side of this barrier. Absolute rubbish. All life on earth is connected to the massive oceans, CO2 and sunlight. They are the parents of all life. One of them has been pronounced evil when in fact two of them are products of combustion.

          Then the combustion of oils is no different to our combustion of carbohydrates. It puzzles me greatly that ‘scientists’ deny the role of the CO2 in the oceans in the vast equilibrium of all the gases. For Man Mad GLobal Warming to exist, CO2 had to be trapped, which is the big lie? How can anyone justify the vilification of the CO2 Carbon cycle, the basis of all life on earth. With no CO2, all life ceases to exist. The United Nations wants to ban it. Plus people, cows, insects, borders and Christianity.

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      theRealUniverse

      I feel there is just total scientific insanity going on. You cant call it even science is just plain foolery. If these scientists (paid Gov funded shills) really believe what they are saying then they need removing from office.

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    pat

    VIDEO: 7min50sec: 1 Nov: 9News: A Current Affair: ‘You can’t sleep’: Wind turbines fanning farmers’ fury
    By Luke Mortimer
    A retired engineer who moved to the country for peace and quiet has been deprived of a good night’s sleep for three years.
    Not long after John Zakula moved to his south Gippsland property, a company erected 52 wind turbines on surrounding properties, all of which are about 130 metres tall.
    Mr Zakula claims the constant humming drives him out of his home in the early hours of the morning to sleep in his car on the side of the road or even at his brother’s home in Melbourne…

    Neighbour Don Fairbrother, who lives about 2km away on the same road, said the wind farm has turned neighbour against neighbour with some landowners enjoying big kickbacks for hosting the noisy turbines…

    About 80kms up the road at Alberton, another wind company, Synergy Wind, has applied to build 34 giant turbines more than 200m tall, and plans to plonk one just 770m from Jacqueline Schneider’s home…
    Mrs Schneider, who gave birth to a boy 13 weeks ago and has a nine-year-old daughter, said she and her husband wouldn’t be able to raise their children on their dairy farm if the wind farm project was given the go ahead…

    In a statement sent to A Current Affair, the director of Synergy Wind, Coralie Spitzner, said noise experts predict noise levels would fall within national guidelines…
    https://www.9news.com.au/national/2018/11/01/17/46/wind-turbine-energy-health-community-anger

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    • #
      Annie

      It seems that the national guidlines need to be reassessed; 750m is far too close. Those bird mincers need to be banished.

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      • #
        theRealUniverse

        Put the ‘noise experts’ under the bird muncher and see how they feel.
        A noise expert is probably just a tech that walks around with a dBA meter…

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        • #
          Annie

          The ‘noise expert’ is probably only briefly there with his little machine. That can’t measure the day after day, month after month and year after year misery of living near those horrible things and having health badly affected, especially by ruined sleep.

          At what stage do those affected set in motion a class action against all those responsible for this infliction on them? I include government, ‘climate scientists’, greenies, local councillors and those owning land who are in it for the filthy lucre?

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            Graeme No.3

            And there was the ‘problem’ in the UK where the meters didn’t measure much below 40Hz.

            Figure it out; 3 blades rotating at 11 r.p.m. and you have noise at 33Hz and 11Hz and other low frequencies but nothing that used to register so ALL WAS WITHIN GUIDELINES.

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          • #
            beowulf

            It’s much worse Annie. Wind farm companies and their acoustic consultants allegedly indulge in shonky practices when it comes to recording noise levels. The comments below refer only to audible frequencies, not infrasound, so the real effects are even worse.

            https://stopthesethings.com/2017/04/22/first-strike-communities-threatened-by-wind-farms-gathering-own-noise-data-to-later-sue-turbine-hosts-developers-in-nuisance/

            “Games such as deliberately placing their noise loggers in bushes or under giant trees during pre-construction noise monitoring (which raises the background noise level) and then, equally deliberately, during “compliance” monitoring placing their noise loggers well away from vegetation in order to lower the noise levels, allowing them to claim that noise from the wind farm satisfies their utterly irrelevant dB(A) noise “guidelines” – note this example from Hepburn Wind’s Community nightmare, where the addition of operating wind turbines (miraculously?) reduced the average noise level at House 10 by 5-6db(A) from ‘Pre-construction’ to ‘Post-construction’.” [graph supplied in article]

            “Other games include “dog ate my homework” stories run by the likes of AECOM at Macarthur when, instead of presenting weeks of data which would have shown non-compliance, claiming that the batteries on their noise loggers had repeatedly gone flat, such that there was no data at all; once, quite possibly, but on three separate occasions, we strongly doubt it…”

            “Another game played by developers and their acoustic consultants is running turbines in ‘low-noise mode’ during ‘compliance’ monitoring. This trick involves ‘feathering’ the angle of the blades, reducing the power output by 30-40% and also reducing the noise produced, even though the turbines appear to be running at full tilt.
            Whenever independent acoustic experts turn up at a wind farm with their kit, the residents notice that the noise levels drop.
            Wind power outfits alerted to the fact that noise monitors are in the area, promptly switch their turbines to low-noise mode. When SA’s EPA, the University of Adelaide and Steven Cooper (an independent acoustic expert) turned up at Waterloo with noise monitoring kit back in May/June 2013, locals noticed how quiet the turbines seemed, compared to normal. The power output from the wind farm during that monitoring period was never more than about 70% of the full capacity of the turbines. Sure enough, when the monitoring kit was removed the turbines returned to their normal rumbling, thumping, soul destroying cacophony.”

            If you want multiple articles on health effects of wind farms go to No Tricks Zone and search ‘health effects’.
            http://notrickszone.com/#sthash.tNBidEDp.dpbs

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        • #
          Kinky Keith

          TRU

          The dBA is just a decoy.

          The harmful VLF pulsing that controls the brain via feedin through the lungs and skin surface is never discussed or measured.

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  • #
    pat

    30 Oct: CityJournal: Why Wind Power Isn’t the Answer, And Why It Is a Dead End
    by Robert Bryce
    (Robert Bryce is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and the producer of the forthcoming documentary, Juice: How Electricity Explains the World, which will be released in 2019)
    The renewables-only proponents have no trouble mobilizing against land use for the extraction of hydrocarbons…

    But the new study, published in Environmental Research Letters, shows yet again that wind energy’s Achilles heel is its paltry power density. “We found that the average power density—meaning the rate of energy generation divided by the encompassing area of the wind plant—was up to 100 times lower than estimates by some leading energy experts,” said lead author Lee Miller, a postdoctoral fellow who coauthored the report with Harvard physics professor David Keith…READ ALL
    https://www.city-journal.org/wind-power-is-not-the-answer

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  • #
    theRealUniverse

    These ‘sea level rises’ reports are a scam, there are no sea level rises out of the ordinary, according to the best in the business, Prof Nils Morner , has said frequently.
    Many of the so called rises are due to sea floors falling due to geologic processes.
    For the sea to rise LARGE volumes of ice have to melt, that ice is locked up mostly in Antarctica and Greenland. The Arctic ice floats! Therefore it cant alter the sea level!

    More news on the planet cooling , spring snowfalls in NZ, and
    https://www.iceagenow.info/end-october-snow-in-parts-of-france-not-seen-since-100-years/

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  • #
    Greebo

    See? Do you see now?? Shortening the lives of our elderly, bankrupting businesses, forcing industry overseas, exporting our energy whilst refraining from using it ourselves, having the world’s most expensive power prices while at the same time causing rolling brownouts, lining the pockets of renewable energy rent seekers and going into vast amounts of debt so we can throw money at World Government for “redistribution” DOES work!

    /sarc…..

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  • #
    pat

    1 Nov: SouthChinaMorningPost: Why has an Australian state broken ranks with Canberra to sign up to China’s belt and road?
    •Victoria embraces Beijing’s infrastructure initiative
    •Move “likely to cause unease” in Canberra, which has concerns over Beijing’s regional ambitions amid claims of Chinese meddling in Australian politics
    By John Power
    PHOTO CAPTION: Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews holds a British ten pound note at a function to formally apologise to descendants of Chinese migrants who were targeted by a racist ten pound tax some 160 years ago.

    Pradeep Taneja, a China scholar at the University of Melbourne, described the move as “controversial” in light of Australia’s foreign policy.
    “The Australian government’s thinking seems to be that if there are any opportunities for Australian companies to benefit from any projects that come up as part of the Belt and Road Initiative, then obviously they should go ahead and do it,” Taneja said. “But at the same time, Australia has raised the same sort of issues about the belt and road as countries like India, Japan and the US have done, which is that it lacks transparency.”…

    Victoria’s ties with Beijing have experienced none of the friction seen at the national level. Since entering office in 2015, its Premier Daniel Andrews, who leads the centre-left Labor Party in the state, has visited China no fewer than four times. At last year’s Belt and Road Forum in Beijing, he was the only Australian state leader in attendance…

    In February, Andrews was forced to deny that his government was compromised after it emerged one of his MPs had served as an adviser to an Australia-based lobby group with links to the Communist Party.
    Clive Hamilton, the author of Silent Invasion: China’s influence in Australia, said the threat of Chinese interference in Australia was yet to be taken seriously in the state capitals.
    “What the belt and road does is signal to Beijing that the Victorian government is not worried about its strategic and political interference – that’s a worry for the whole nation,” he said.
    Hamilton said Victoria’s moves were likely to cause unease within Canberra, and other states could potentially follow its lead…
    https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/article/2171159/why-has-australian-state-broken-ranks-canberra-sign-chinas-belt-and-road

    26 Oct: AFR: Victoria goes it alone with support for China’s Belt and Road
    by Michael Smith
    Shanghai The Victorian government has bypassed Canberra and formally signed up to Chinese President Xi Jinping’s signature foreign policy initiative, Belt and Road, in a deal it hopes will secure jobs and investment from the state in the multibillion-dollar spending program.

    Laabor Premier Daniel Andrews and China’s Ambassador to Australia Cheng Jingye signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) this week which makes Victoria the only Australian state to formally support the controversial initiative…
    The move by Victoria, which wants to capitalise on the state’s expertise in big infrastructure projects to help companies benefit from the so-called Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), is the latest sign that the states are going it alone with efforts to forge closer business ties to China after the bilateral relationship soured under the Turnbull government…

    Senior Australian businessman Malcolm Broomhead said it was “naive” to ignore the potential opportunities from BRI and urged other states to follow Victoria’s lead. Mr Broomhead, who is on the board of BHP Billiton, is the chairman of the Australia-China Belt and Road Initiative (ACBRI), which helped facilitate the MoU…
    “It is vitally important for us where we sit geographically and given the Chinese economy is going to be the dominant world economy for the next 100 years that we are part of it”…

    Northern Territory Chief Minister Michael Gunner led a charm offensive to China in August where he talked up the potential benefits of BRI. Tasmania has also sent a delegation to China this year. Ministers from other states will visit Shanghai next month as part of a delegation being led by Federal Trade Minister Simon Birmingham.
    https://www.afr.com/business/infrastructure/victoria-goes-it-alone-with-support-for-chinas-belt-and-road-20181026-h174t0

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    el gordo

    Satellite imagery has exposed the deception, easily provable using the scientific method, so Cameron and Dean should run with this. Its funny because its true.

    Australia’s environment minister has a sense of humour and it would be a coup to get her on the show.

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  • #
    pat

    31 Oct: Paul Homewood: IEA Opposed To Cheap Energy For Developing Nations
    h/t Robin Guenier
    https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2018/10/31/iea-opposed-to-cheap-energy-for-developing-nations/

    reminders:

    from 5mins 15secs – Obama: “climate change” – there are entire continents – sub-Saharan Africa, Indian sub-continent…they are going to need electricity, energy. but if they duplicate the way we produced energy here, then the entire planet is underwater. they need connectivity, clean energy.

    Youtube: 7:49 – Mark Zuckerberg interviews President Barack Obama at The Global entrepreneurship summit at Stanford
    FIRST REPLY:
    Some intense eye contact there.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iadsQJTup04

    July 2013: CNS News: Obama: ‘Planet Will Boil Over’ If Young Africans Are Allowed Cars, Air-Conditioning, Big Houses
    By Ryan Kierman
    President Barack Obama said at a town hall event in Johannesburg, South Africa, on Saturday that unless we find new way of producing energy “the planet will boil over” if people in Africa are allowed to attain air conditioning, automobiles and big houses.
    “Ultimately, if you think about all the youth that everybody has mentioned here in Africa, if everybody is raising living standards to the point where everybody has got a car and everybody has got air conditioning, and everybody has got a big house, well, the planet will boil over — unless we find new ways of producing energy.”…
    The president’s comments, made the day before unveiling his “Power Africa” initiative for a “sustainable” African energy strategy, came while speaking at University of Johannesburg-Soweto…

    Speaking on the future of U.S. aid to Africa, the president said that it was his goal “to see if we can leapfrog some of the polluting practices of America or Europe, and go straight to the clean energy strategies that will allow you to advance economic growth, but not corrupt the planet.”…
    https://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/obama-planet-will-boil-over-if-young-africans-are-allowed-cars-air-conditioning-big

    more to come.

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      pat

      1 Nov: PV-Tech: Skills gap holding back global decentralised renewable energy sector
      By Tom Kenning
      Indeed, Sub-Saharan Africa (excluding South Africa) has just 16,000 people working in renewable energy in a region with 600 million un-electrified people, according to the founders of a new campaign aiming to fill this skills gap.

      A global coalition this week launched #PoweringJobs, a multi-year campaign aimed at creating the new energy skills and jobs needed to provide access to cheap, reliable, and clean energy for all. The coalition, backed by Schneider Electric Foundation and The Rockefeller Foundation, is made up of multilateral organizations, educational and training institutions, global energy companies, civil society groups, researchers and more…

      A Power For All spokesperson told PV Tech that Sub-Saharan Africa will be a key focus of the campaign given that this region has the biggest energy access gaps, the fewest trained workers and the biggest opportunity to use DRE to spur clean energy and new jobs, especially in rural areas…

      India’s Skill Council for Green Jobs, launched as part of Prime Minister Modi’s massive national solar push, has already created 450 job training centres in seven states across the country and more than 30,000 solar PV installers have been certified.”
      The International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) has also estimated that off-grid renewables for energy access could create at least 4.5 million jobs by 2030.

      However, Power For All told PV Tech that IRENA’s numbers could be conservative. The ILO has estimated that India alone could add 3 million new jobs if the renewable energy sector continues with its current growth trajectory…
      For example, supported by the campaign, French energy management firm Schneider Electric has set a 2025 objective to train one million people in energy skills in countries where energy access is very low…
      https://www.pv-tech.org/news/skills-gap-holding-back-global-decentralised-renewable-energy-sector

      terrible website:

      Power for All: Partners & Allies
      https://www.powerforall.org/about/partners-and-allies

      Our Supporters: UK Aid, ClimateWorks, UN Environment, David & Lucile Packard Foundation, Ospry Foundation, Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, Rockefeller Foundation, US Aid, Schneider Electric.
      Power for All is committed to delivering access to energy for the 85% of the 1.1 billion people without reliable power that live in rural areas within 10 years.

      Team includes: William Brent, Director of Communications, Media & Content (bio omits much)

      Bloomberg Bio: Mr. William Brent has been an Executive Vice President of Weber Shandwick Worldwide, Inc. since October 2010 and serves as its Director of Global Cleantech Practice. Mr. Brent has been an Executive Vice President of Weber Shandwick FCC since October 2010. He serves as Senior Vice President of Weber Shandwick, a Leading International Pr Agency. At Weber Shandwick, Mr. Brent heads it’s clean technology and clean energy practice. Prior to joining Weber Shandwick in 2005, Mr. Brent was a foreign correspondent in China, working for Agence France-Presse and the Asian Wall Street Journal. During his 16 years in China, he was also a successful Entrepreneur, founding or co-founding three media and marketing companies. Mr. Brent has more than 20 years of experience in the media and marketing industries. Mr. Brent serves as Member of Advisory Board, North America for Cleantech Network LLC. He served as Member of The Society Of Environmental Journalists, and still writes about issues of sustainability and technology through his blog – http://www.mrcleantech.com.

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    pat

    lucky Jamaica:

    1 Nov: Jamaica Gleaner: Earth Today: Island gets visit from Climate Investment Funds
    JAMAICA WAS selected as one of 10 countries being visited by the Climate Investment Funds (CIF) in honour of its 10th anniversary celebrations.
    The CIF works in 72 countries globally, but only chose 10 to visit.
    “We chose two of your projects out of over 300 globally,” said Scott Vincent Andrews, communications officer at the CIF, while addressing stakeholders of the projects funded by the Special Climate Change Adaptation Fund under Adaptation Programme and Financing Mechanism (AP&FM) of the Pilot Programme for Climate Resilience (PPCR).

    The PPCR is partly funded by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) through funding from the CIF. Jamaica has five climate-change adaptation projects being implemented under the PPCR.
    On October 25, Scott Vincent, accompanied by Anaitee Mills from the Kingston office of the IDB and a team from the AP&FM, visited the White River Fish Sanctuary in St Ann, which implemented a coral-replanting project that saw about 1,000 pieces of coral being replanted.
    They also visited Rocky Point, Clarendon, where drainage solutions were implemented to reduce the fishing community’s vul-nerability to flooding.
    http://jamaica-gleaner.com/article/news/20181101/earth-today-island-gets-visit-climate-investment-funds

    Wikipedia: Climate Investment Funds (CIF)
    CIFs are two distinct funds: the Clean Technology Fund and the Strategic Climate Fund…
    The CIFs are additional to existing Official Development Assistance (ODA) and aim to enable countries to continue on their development path and achieve the Millennium Development Goals…

    The Pilot Program for Climate Resilience (PPCR) is the first program under the Strategic Climate Fund. It seeks to explore practical ways to mainstream climate resilience into core development planning and budgeting that is consistent with poverty reduction and sustainable development goals…
    The funds were approved by the World Bank Board of Directors in July 2008 and on September 26, 2008 received pledges of US$6.5 billion…
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_Investment_Funds

    1 Nov: Jamaica Gleaner: Earth Today: CARICOM preps for upcoming climate talks
    THE Summary for Policymakers (SPM) of the Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5 degrees Celsius is reportedly on the table for discussion when Caribbean Community (CARICOM) countries meet in Barbados later this month to prepare for the upcoming global climate talks in Poland in December.
    The meeting, to be held on November 12 to 14, will comprise a two-day technical meeting and a one-day ministerial…
    “One of the key messages that comes out very strongly from this report is that we are already seeing the consequences of one degree Celsius of global warming through more extreme weather, rising sea levels and diminishing Arctic sea ice, among other changes,” said Panmao Zhai, co-chair of IPCC Working Group I, in a release from the IPCC…

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    pat

    1 Nov: MountainWatch: World Snow Wrap – Winter Kicks Off In The Northern Hemisphere
    The Alps have been dumped on, good snowfalls in the Rockies and the first snowfall in Japan…READ ON
    http://www.mountainwatch.com/Snow-news/world-snow-wrap-winter-kicks-off-in-the-northern-hemisphere/

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    robert rosicka

    ABC are reporting that the Russians were to blame for Brexit .

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    robert rosicka

    Hey Jo there’s a vacancy on the sky news outsiders program, Ross Cameron has just been sacked for comments he made on Tuesdays program .
    Anyone who has watched this show will know Ross has never bought anything bad about China or Russia that’s said in MSM and always said he will believe any claims when he see’s evidence of the claim .
    But sacked for a story and comments about the Chinese .

    Another nail in the coffin of free speech

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    pat

    did anyone imgine the anti-democratic, anti-Brexit people were ever going to stop their witch-hunt?

    2 Nov: Guardian: Arron Banks faces criminal inquiry over Brexit campaign
    MPs call for Brexit process to be paused as NCA investigates £2.9m spent by leave campaign
    by Peter Walker and Jim Waterson
    The National Crime Agency is to investigate allegations of multiple criminal offences by Arron Banks and his unofficial leave campaign in the Brexit referendum, prompting calls from some MPs for the process of departing the European Union to be suspended.

    The NCA would look into suspicions that a “number of criminal offences may have been committed”, the Electoral Commission said (LINK) in a statement, saying there were reasonable grounds to suspect Banks was “not the true source” of £8m in funding to the Leave.EU campaign…

    The commission said the cases involve Banks, the insurance millionaire who heavily backed leave; Elizabeth Bilney, one of his key associates; Leave.EU itself; the company used to finance it; and “other associated companies and individuals”…

    Downing Street said it could not comment on a live investigation, but dismissed the idea of a pause: “The referendum was the largest democratic exercise in this country’s history and the PM is getting on with delivering its result.”….

    Banks, formerly a major bankroller of Ukip, said in a statement he was pleased at the news. He said: “I am confident that a full and frank investigation will finally put an end to the ludicrous allegations levelled against me and my colleagues.
    “There is no evidence of any wrongdoing from the companies I own. I am a UK taxpayer and I have never received any foreign donations. The Electoral Commission has produced no evidence to the contrary. The Electoral Commission has referred me to the National Crime Agency under intense political pressure from anti-Brexit supporters.”

    Bilney told BBC Radio 4’s World at One on Thursday that the Electoral Commission had consistently taken “a biased approach”, saying this was owing to its previous funding from the EU…

    A series of reports, led by the (Guardian) Observer’s Carol Cadwalladr, have uncovered links by Banks and his leave campaign to Russia, prompting speculation about this being the source of some of the funding..
    https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/nov/01/arron-banks-referred-to-agency-over-suspected-offences-in-brexit-campaign

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    pat

    as for Ross Cameron:

    2 Nov: ABC: Ross Cameron sacked by Sky News after making racist comments on Outsiders program
    By Paige Cockburn
    Cameron made disparaging comments about Chinese people shortly before midnight on Tuesday.
    His comments sparked outrage online, and were fiercely condemned by Australia’s former race discrimination commissioner Tim Soutphommasane‏.
    “I have today advised Ross Cameron that his contract with Sky News has been terminated,” Sky News chief executive Paul Whittaker said in a statement…

    The broadcaster has now deleted all content from the relevant Outsiders episode from all its platforms.
    “We apologise for any hurt or offence caused by the remarks made by Ross Cameron on the program,” Mr Whittaker said.
    Mr Soutphommasane‏ said the comments were offensive.
    “This is nasty even by the low standards of Sky News and Outsiders,” he said.
    Following Sky’s dismissal of Cameron, he called for the same action to be taken against his co-host Rowan Dean…
    https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-11-02/ross-cameron-sacked-by-sky-news-after-making-racist-comments/10460992

    “outrage online”? who was outraged?

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      robert rosicka

      I watch their show and was watching on Tuesday and I suppose if you take what he said out of context and have never watched the show maybe if you’re easily offended but otherwise I must have missed something .

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      GD

      Rowan Dean will be next. If you don’t think that every show on Sky is monitored by leftards looking for offence, then you’re not thinking. It’s obvious that the perpetually offended activists have been hanging on every word from the Outsiders’ show.

      First, they got rid of Mark Latham, now Ross Cameron, and next to go will be Rowan Dean. And then no more Outsiders. Next the leftard activists will focus more intently on Paul Murray Live. There, one by one, panellists who are the bastions of free speech on PMLive will fall like dominoes.

      Sky ‘After Dark’ will be reduced to being a mirror of the ABC. At that point, I hope we’ll stop subscribing to Sky. After all, we’re forced to subscribe to the ABC, so why pay twice for the same content?

      We must fight against this suppression of free speech. Unfortunately, we now know that Sky management haven’t got our backs in this fight.

      I hope that this misguided, draconian decision doesn’t affect Jo’s recently announced schedule on the Outsiders.

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    pat

    2 Nov: SBS: Sky News host Ross Cameron fired after ‘slanty-eyed’ comments
    By Evan Young
    Mr Cameron’s comments were condemned online, including by former Race Discrimination Commissioner Tim Soutphommasane‏…
    The comments were also picked up by activist group Sleeping Giants Oz, who have been pressuring companies who advertise with Sky News to withdraw their ads…
    https://www.sbs.com.au/news/sky-news-host-ross-cameron-fired-after-slanty-eyed-comments

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      ivan

      He said “in Shanghai Disneyland” FFS.Its perfectly true
      I would be quite happy if they called me a honky pale face with stupid /scary blue eyes
      I fail to see the offence..but then Im old.
      Couldnt buy sugar cubes in Coles today ..nor Topside

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    pat

    anti-free speech mob got Gab (temporarily?) shut down recently:

    4 Oct: Bloomberg: Alt-Right Website Gab Attracts Bolsonaro Supporters in Brazil
    Flavio Bolsonaro, one of his sons, has a verified profile on Gab, although it only has one post. Another of his sons, Eduardo, in August posted a photo of himself with Steve Bannon, Trump’s former strategist and a leading figure in the alt-right movement, saying they share the same worldview…
    The Gab app isn’t available on Apple’s app store and has been banned from Google’s…
    by Rodrigo Orihuela; With assistance from David Biller
    https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/alt-right-website-gab-attracks-bolsonaro-supporters-in-brazil-1.1147720

    30 Oct: ABC Australia: What’s the story behind Gab, the favoured platform of the US alt-right?
    The Signal By Stephen Smiley and Angela Lavoipierre
    What is Gab?
    Gab is a social media platform established in 2017 by tech entrepreneur and Trump supporter Mr Torba…

    Will Sommers is a tech and internet reporter at US website The Daily Beast, and told The Signal he estimates Gab has more than 400,000 users, based on figures from March of this year; Gab says its users number is 800,000.
    Sommers has an account on Gab himself, but says he is an infrequent poster…

    “There are also people who like the idea that they won’t get kicked off Gab in general — libertarians, people who are there because they’re trying to politically support Gab and its mission, for example,” Sommers said.

    And there are also other communities — for instance, there was an incident recently where there was something going on with Brazilian social media so a lot of Brazilians set up accounts on Gab.
    “So essentially, communities that have sort of been exiled from other social media platforms end up on Gab.”…

    But Gab’s current shutdown may only prove temporary, with the platform’s founder remaining defiant.
    In the leaked NPR interview, Mr Torba said his company would find alternatives if some of its key partners pulled out.
    “Gab is the banned book of the internet,” he told NPR.
    “If we have to build from the ground up our own infrastructure, our own payment processors — whatever it takes — we are not going anywhere.
    “You can ‘no-platform’ Gab for a little while, but you’re not going to ‘no-platform’ the community that we have built of 800,000 people from around the world who are fighting for freedom of expression and individual liberty on the internet.”
    https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-10-30/pittsburgh-massacre-whats-behind-us-alt-right-platform-gab/10444202

    31 Oct: Breitbart: Gab Standard: Twitter Failed to Act on Hundreds of Death Threats from Mail Bombing Suspect
    by Charlie Nash
    Twitter allowed Cesar Sayoc, the man who allegedly sent apparent bombs to public figures around the country this month, to post more than 240 threats towards 50 different people on its social network without sanction. Meanwhile, the media managed to temporarily force free speech social network Gab offline after it was revealed that the Tree of Life Pittsburgh Synagogue shooting suspect had an account on the platform…

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      pat

      for clarification. Bolsonaro supporters were shut out of WhatsApp, which is why they moved to Gab. Sommers doesn’t explain any of that on ABC, of course, just keeps it vague:

      20 Oct: Bloomberg: WhatsApp Bans More Than 100,000 Accounts in Brazil Election
      By Sarah Frier and Giulia Camillo; With assistance by David Biller
      WhatsApp banned hundreds of thousands of accounts in Brazil as the Facebook Inc. messaging service struggles to contain spam, misinformation and political shenanigans ahead of a runoff election in Latin America’s largest country…

      Facebook set up a “war room” to stem the tide of hate speech, false information and other damaging content during Brazil’s election this month, marking a test for the social network ahead of the November midterm elections in the U.S…
      Bolsonaro wrote on Twitter that his opponent’s party “isn’t being damaged by fake news, but rather by the TRUTH.” …
      https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-10-19/whatsapp-bans-more-than-100-000-accounts-in-brazil-election

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    pat

    2 Nov: ABC: ‘White supremacist’ signs declaring ‘it’s okay to be white’ appear outside MPs’ offices
    By Eugene Boisvert
    Posters saying “It’s okay to be white” have appeared outside the offices of two federal MPs who were among the most strident in criticising Government senators for voting for a motion declaring the same.
    Both South Australian Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young and West Australian Labor MP Anne Aly, whose offices were targeted, have taken to social media to complain about the posters…
    “This white supremacist slogan has no place in Adelaide and no place in 2018,” Ms Hanson-Young said…

    Senator Hanson-Young said she had referred the posters to police, although she was unclear what crime might have been committed.
    “Sadly, Pauline Hanson and One Nation have given licence to spread this hate,” she said…

    The posters were plastered on the windows of Dr Aly’s office in the Perth suburb of Madeley.
    Responding to the incident in a Facebook post, she said “words matter”.
    “When our leaders use white supremacist and neo-Nazi slogans in Parliament, and when the Government votes in favour of them, this happens,” she said…
    https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-11-01/its-okay-to-be-white-signs-appear-outside-mps-offices/10457140

    following was on ABC RN two nights ago. “white supremacist” must have been mentioned a dozen times or more:

    20 Oct: CBC: Out in the Open: Fighting hate with friendship — one Exalted Cyclops at a time
    Daryl guesses he has helped about 200 people leave the KKK. One of them is Scott Shepherd.
    Scott was deeply embedded in the Klan. He joined when he was 16-years-old and eventually reached the high-ranking position of Grand Dragon for the state of Tennessee. He recruited Klan members by targeting kids from troubled homes and he was friends with David Duke, then-leader of the KKK…

    Scott wanted to withdraw from the white supremacist movement and had nowhere to turn. Daryl was his guide out of the Ku Klux Klan…
    (SCROLL DOWN LINK) •Full Episode FULL EPISODE: Cut Through Hate
    https://www.cbc.ca/radio/outintheopen/fighting-hate-with-friendship-one-exalted-cyclops-at-a-time-1.4450891

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    pat

    part of the fall-out from another ABC “alt-right” program. Nazis everywhere!

    31 Oct: SBS: AAP: NSW Nats clear key player in Nazi scandal
    Some NSW Nationals members cleared by an initial investigation into alleged infiltration by neo-Nazis should be re-examined, according to a former staffer.
    The supposed ringleader of a Nationals branch stacking operation that resulted in dozens of alleged neo-Nazi and white supremacists infiltrating the party won’t be investigated by the organisation’s ethics committee.

    The man, who many within the party hold responsible for stacking the 2018 NSW Young Nationals annual conference with people tied to alt-right organisations, was cleared of having neo-Nazi links by an initial internal investigation, senior party sources have told AAP.
    The speedy investigation also cleared more than 20 others – including one federal minister’s staffer – without referring them to the party’s Constitution and Ethics Committee.

    A further 17 people implicated in alleged neo-Nazi activity will be subject to the ethics committee investigation, which is expected to take place before the end of the week. It is understood many of those will be asked to leave the party.
    The names of those cleared and the 17 people referred to the committee are detailed in two lists contained in a dossier seen by AAP…

    A well-connected party member and former Nationals employee said many of those cleared needed to be investigated further – including the alleged ringleader.
    “Branch stacking is one thing, but these are actual Nazis,” the party member told AAP…
    The member suggested some of those on the “cleared list” were “teflon within the party … they are protected”.
    A staff member for a NSW Nationals minister is also on the list of those cleared…

    The dossier contains information about several party members and their links to the white supremacist or neo-Nazi movement, including screenshots of the alleged ringleader organising their memberships…

    An ABC investigation uncovered the plot by the alt-right movement to join major political parties and influence their policies. It also found Young Nationals members were attending a secret men’s-only fight club founded by prominent alt-right nationalists…
    https://www.sbs.com.au/news/nsw-nats-clear-key-player-in-nazi-scandal

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